Mittal signs €1bn iron deal in Iran

According to Press TV, the contract that has been signed with Mahan Industries and Mines Development Company – a subsidiary of Iran’s Tourism Financial Group – envisages extracting iron and the establishment of a processing plant in the country’s Southern Province of Kerman.

Mahan has not specified which specific iron mine will be the subject of the deal with Mittal but it owns a major mine near Sirjan which is considered to be one of the largest in the country with a reservoir of about 1.2 billion tons. The company last year won a deal to extract 24 million tons of iron from the same mine for 14 years.

Mittal Steel is also based on the same deal expected to take charge of managing Mahan’s Bonab Steel Production Complex in northwestern Iran for a period of five years.

Located near Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan Province, Bonab Complex has an annual production capacity of over 3.5 million tons and is considered the biggest private sector steel production project in Iran.

Tourism Financial Group – a major holding that controls a chain of banks, financial institutions, tourism enterprises and industrial firms – has announced in a statement that it expects the deal with Mittal to help transfer the technical knowledge in the steel industry to Iran.

It has also said it expects the deal to help Iran export steel products to regional and international markets through partnership with Mittal.